


Cinder-Boy and the Nightmare Prince

by Saucery



Series: Far, Far Away [4]
Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Cinderella - Freeform, Cinderella!Stiles, Class Differences, Crack, Drama, Fairy Godfather, Fairy Tales, M/M, Politics, Princes & Princesses, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Ridiculous, Romance, Royalty, Scars, Secret Identity, Secrets, Stileserella, The Author is Clearly Insane, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The epic love story of Stileserella and his mysterious, rather creepy prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

Stiles is in Lady Allison’s kitchen, scrubbing away at pots, when he overhears the conversation.

“Can you believe it?” mock-whispers a scullery maid, wiping her hands on a stained apron. “He’s coming back!”

“Oh, no,” says another, an on-break laundry maid. Stiles hasn’t actually bothered to learn any names; it’s not like he’ll be making friends. “ _Him?_ Who knows who he’ll kill next?”

“He murdered his own uncle. Doesn’t that monster feel any shame, returning after all this time?”

It’s about Prince Derek. Of course it is. The Nightmare Prince; the Wolf-Prince; the Dark Prince. So many epithets, so little time... Stiles is sick and tired of hearing the gossip, really.

“Uh, didn’t his uncle, like, kill innocent people?” Stiles interjects, shaking out his washcloth. “Seems like _he_ was the monster, to me.”

“Shut up, cinder-boy,” says the scullery maid. “You’re too dull to see the big picture. Obviously, it was a conspiracy. Everyone knows that Lord Peter was a wonderful man; he survived that terrible fire that killed the king and queen, and he saved the young prince and princess, too. He couldn’t have killed all those people! It must’ve been Derek; Peter was framed. Derek was always the broody one, anyway. He sure _acted_ like a killer. A creepy, psychopathic killer.”

“Seems kinda strange to me,” says Stiles, “judging someone for just that. I mean, wouldn’t a psychopath be less obvious? More like Peter? Super-nice up front, but kind of a whack-job behind that front?”

“Just because you’re an over-reaching peasant that thinks you can steal Lady Allison’s medical scrolls, doesn’t mean you know anything, okay?”

“First, she _lets_ me borrow them. Second, the courtiers wouldn’t side with Derek if he didn’t have good reasons for what he did, right?”

“They’re courtiers. They have no conscience.”

“What about Queen Laura? She have no conscience, too?”

The girls gasp; treasonous talk like that can get any of them beheaded, although Queen Laura is universally known as a just and tolerant queen. Not all the ministers are tolerant, though.

With no further comments to make, the maids duck their heads, darting Stiles resentful glances.

Well. Whatever. At least he won’t have to listen to pointless idiocy while he’s doing work that is... pointlessly idiotic. Crap. At least he’ll be done, soon; he can sneak back up to Lady Allison’s library and read for a while before he has to go home.

A few minutes later, a shadow stirs in the corner of the kitchen, and the dirty, black-cloaked traveler who’d stopped by for a luncheon gets up. He takes his bowl to the wash-basin, all polite-like, and sketches a small bow when the scullery maid takes it from him.

“Thank you,” he says, and the weird thing is, he’s looking at _Stiles_.

“N-no problem,” says the maid, blushing - after all, the man’s tall and well-built and with a solemn, handsome face, for all that it’s scarred on one side and rough with stubble.

And he’s staring at Stiles.

Why is he staring at Stiles?

“What’s your name?” the guy asks.

“M-m-mine?” the girl stutters. “Oh, sir, my - ”

“What’s. Your. Name,” he repeats, and it’s at that point the scullery maid realizes that he isn’t talking to her. She stiffens, shooting Stiles a venomous glare.

Great. Working here was always so much fun; now, it’s going to be orgasmic.

“Stiles,” he replies, stacking the last of the dishes. “Um. Stiles Stilinski? Why’d you want to - ”

“Tell Lady Allison,” the man continues, right _over_ Stiles, “that I thank her for the meal, and that I will be requiring her assistance in other matters, soon.”

“ _I’m_ the servant of this house,” the scullery maid breaks in. “He’s just on loan from the Whittemores. Let me tell the lady.”

“Tell her,” says the traveler, only to Stiles, and his eyes are so sharp. They are, Stiles realizes distantly, the exact color of knives that’ve been sharpened to the point where they look blue.

“Uh,” he says. “Sure? I - ”

“Thank you,” the man says, again, and executes another one of those semi-bows before tugging the hood of his cloak over his head, placing his hand on the hilt of his too-obvious, too-old sword, and ducking out of the door.

“What a bastard,” mutters the scullery maid, a little red in the face. “No manners at all.”

“I thought he was a perfect gentleman,” says Stiles, feeling rather flushed, himself.

The maid snorts.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Maybe it’s just Stiles, but it sure seems like he runs into Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome very regularly. Either the man is following him (the thought of which starts a strange, anxious, hungry buzz in his stomach), or Stiles is just being used as a convenient go-between, which - let’s face it - is far more likely. Why else would someone with looks like _that_ pay any attention to Stiles? Obviously, Lady Allison has important business with the man - not a love affair, since, well, Scott.

It’s something of a scandal, that the beautiful and peerless Lady Allison has taken up with her muscular and none-too-bright stableboy, but they only have eyes for each other. And hands for each other. Very handsy hands. If Lady Allison weren’t a realm-famous hunter and didn’t also cut a perfectly terrifying figure with a bow and arrow, her family probably would’ve disowned her, by now. In fact, unofficially, they sort of _have_ disowned her - but Stiles only knows that because he pseudo-works at the Argent estate. Castle. Thing.

Stiles likes Lady Allison. She treats her servants like they’re actually people (or, in Scott’s case, a god - a sex god), and treats Stiles like he actually has a brain, and lets him into the library, from where he borrows scrolls. So he doesn’t much care that Lord Argent, her taciturn, widowed father, disapproves of her. Or that the rest of ‘civilized society’ does. They can take their disapproval and go hang.

Well, not _literally_ -

Stiles doesn’t enjoy entertaining violent thoughts -

But.

Dark and Handsome? Not boning Lady Allison.

Not that it’ll bother Stiles if the letters the man asks him to deliver to Lady Allison actually turn out to be love-notes.

It won’t bother him, at all.

 

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

“So,” Jackson says, one not-so-fine day, when Stiles is - as usual - oiling Jackson’s cuirass. Jackson is _obsessed_ with jousting. Unhealthily so. Stiles personally thinks that Jackson has a size complex; it’s the only possible reason for Jackson’s fixation on having the biggest ever lance. “Who’s the guy?”

“The what?”

“The. Guy,” says Jackson, slowly. “You know, the weirdo? That you keep meeting up with in dark places?”

Stiles doesn’t pause. He just keeps right on oiling. “I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m your lord, so I’m asking you - _who is he_?”

“I don’t know.”

“I said - ”

“I don’t know who he is, my lord.” Stiles looks up at Jackson, doing his best clueless-idiot look. Jackson expects his servants to be mindless drones; it’s Stiles’s job to meet his master’s expectations. “Honestly.”

“Honestly,” Jackson murmurs, eyes narrowed and thoughtful. There’s an unpleasant curl to the corner of his mouth. “So it’s like that, is it?”

Like what?

“You know, if your father hadn’t died and left you to pay off his debt to us, maybe you wouldn’t have needed to work your, heh, ass off. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

_What?_

“How much is he paying you?”

Stiles’s fingers don’t even clench on the oiling-rag. He’s Stiles-the- mindless-drone. He - he doesn’t understand. “Paying me, my lord?”

“For your services. What, the fact that we’re letting you work at the Argents isn’t enough? How many hours a day do you work, anyway?”

Stiles rattles off the times, by rote. “Dawn to midday, with the Argents; midday to sundown, with the Deatons; sundown to midnight, here. Nineteen hours in total, my lord.”

“And you’ve still got time left over to whore yourself out?”

He doesn’t flinch. “I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”

“Don’t - the hell you don’t, you little - ” Jackson grabs his collar, pulling him upright. Stiles drops the rag; the cuirass falls from his lap. “Shameless,” hisses Jackson, and shakes him. “You’re _shameless_.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything. Usually, if he lets Jackson have one of his fits, then Jackson will leave him alone; he only ever wants to bully people, to get a reaction out of them, and if Stiles gives him none, Jackson will eventually stop, disappointed. Sure, this is a new vein of torment, but -

“I know you,” Jackson whispers, low and vicious. “I _know_ you, you little slut. I’ve grown up with you. Did you think I didn’t know how all those visitors to our household tried to get you alone?” Jackson’s gaze lowers to his lips; his eyes darken. “You and your mouth...”

That -

“Oh, _now_ you’re getting it. Tell me, did you even notice it when they plugged your ass? Or are you really that dumb?”

Stiles is shaking. He knows he is. Fuck, if Jackson wants - if Jackson _wants_ , then Stiles can’t say no -

Fuck that, he _will_ say no - he’ll break the fucking cuirass over Jackson’s _head_ -

And if that means his debt to the Jackson’s family, the Whittemores, goes unpaid - that he’s arrested and thrown into fucking jail, then so be it -

But Jackson’s still talking. “Desperate now, are we? You always get this wild-eyed? Thought it’d be routine, for you. Don’t tell me Lord Argent’s had you, too. Hell, the way you’re used to it, maybe your father - ”

Stiles _shoves_.

And he’s not exactly sure what happens next, but things go red, and suddenly, he’s standing there, blinking, and Jackson’s on the floor, holding his jaw, and Stiles’s knuckles are stinging.

“There you are.” Jackson’s eyes glitter. “Hello, Stiles.”

Stiles just pants, unable to believe he’s struck a lord.

“Been years since I last saw you. And I’ve been trying, but, man, you only broke for _him_? That dude whose name you supposedly don’t even know? He must matter a great deal to you, huh, for you to be protecting him?”

“ _I don’t know who he is._ ”

“I’ll find out, don’t worry. I’ll have him followed. I’ll have him blackmailed, once I find out his name, and if he doesn’t want everyone to know he fucks servant-boys, he’ll shut the hell up and stay away from you.”

“You - you can’t - ”

“I can’t? Who do you think kept all those ‘visitors’ away from you, anyway?” Jackson rubs at his jaw. “Damn, that was a lot of effort. And money. I had scouts following them. Seriously, you don’t owe me less after years of working for me; you owe me more.”

And Stiles - Stiles doesn’t know what to _do_ with that. He’s trembling all over. He’s shocked beyond the telling of it, and it’s not like he’s ever actually been assaulted by any of the assholes Jackson’s parents regularly invite over for dinner parties, but it’s not like he hasn’t noticed the the looks they give him, either. “You’re - you’re making that up. They’ve never - ”

“Hm. And why do you think that is?”

Stiles takes a step back. “Stay away from me. I owe you money, and I’m working to pay it off, and I’m doing it the decent way, the way my dad would want. Nothing you can say is going to convince me I need to give it up for you, okay?”

“The way you’ll give it up for that guy?”

Stiles stays silent.

“Fine, fine.” Jackson gets up. His jaw’s swelling, but he’s smirking, like it doesn’t hurt at all. “I could have you whipped for that, you know. For hitting someone of my class.”

“Someone of your _class_ ,” Stiles grits out, “has to marry Lady Lydia. You’re engaged. How do you think that’ll go down, if she knows you like to fuck servant-boys?”

“Are you blackmailing me _back_?” Jackson’s eyes are wide, but there’s a strange, satisfied gleam to them, like -

Stiles doesn’t want to know what it’s like. “If I have to.”

“I could just have you killed.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you want me.”

“You think plenty of lords and ladies haven’t had their pretty little bed-toys killed, when it suits them?”

“I’m not your toy.”

“Well. Less of a loss for me, then.”

“Try it,” says Stiles, heart hammering. “Just try it.”

“Oh,” murmurs Jackson, drawing close. “I will.”

Stiles... stumbles backward. And finds the door-knob by touch alone, because he can’t show Jackson his back, can’t let him -

The door swings open.

Stiles gets the hell out.

 

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

Stiles isn’t, actually, an idiot. He knows very well what’s going on - or, well, he’s got what he believes is a pretty workable theory about what’s going on. It’s taken him some time to put it all together, but after the last letter? That had Lady Allison going pale and panicky and immediately dispatching a messenger pigeon to the royal palace? Yeah. Not much in the way of reasonable doubt, there.

Lady Allison’s always been firmly in the pro-Derek camp - or, more to the point, the anti-Peter camp. The Argents in general just don’t like the royal family as a whole, but Allison’s... different. Because Allison has a personality. Ergo, she has loyalties. And beliefs. Things that people with hearts and consciences have.

So, when an incredibly well-behaved, incredibly well-armed stranger happens to return to the royal city at the exact same time as the prince’s supposed return, and starts exchanging letters with Lady Allison while also refusing to divulge his name, even to the messenger _carrying_ said letters?

Well. It’s obvious, right?

Still, technically, he doesn’t know who Mr. TD&H is. He doesn’t. He’s got plausible deniability. In case some errant lord with a grudge against the royals decides to capture him and throw him in wrist-irons and interrogate him, or something, he’s still going to be able to say, without lying, that he was never told who he was dealing with.

He appreciates that. He really does. He appreciates the fact that TD&H is protecting him, in his own weird way, by not telling him anything.

But it also pisses him off. Especially now, with Jackson on the loose, presumably sending page-boys with bowl-cuts to spy on him. Them.

 _Them_. Shit. And the worst part is, Stiles hasn’t even done anything sensational enough to deserve being spied on. It’s not like he and Der - uh, Dansome, yes, let’s call him that - are actually necking like lovelorn teenagers in the woods. Not just because Dansome isn’t a teenager, but because Dansome isn’t interested in him. At all.

Also, Dansome is... the guy Stiles definitely doesn’t know he is. Guys like _that_ don’t go for dweebs like Stiles. Scruffy, poor, skinny dweebs. Peasant dweebs. Even though the rich creeps at the Whittemores’ - including Jackson - seem to think he’s some kind of walking candy-pie. With big eyes. Everyone keeps mentioning his big eyes. And his mouth. Jesus, what is even up with that? (Well, Jackson is obviously ‘up’ with that - god, Stiles does _not_ need that image - but Jackson is clearly psychopathic and/or deranged. Which Dansome is not. He does have his freaky moments, but... he’s also who he is.)

So. Stiles. Not Dansome-worthy material. Whatever small hopes he’d managed to scrounge up like scraps from around life’s massive dinner table of great-experiences-that-Stiles-was-never-invited-to, they sure as hell are gone, now. Scraps in the wind. Leaves in the wind. Stiles has totally given up.

He’s just going to satisfy himself by being useful to Dansome. By helping him do... whatever he’s doing.

And when it’s done, Dansome will go back to that place Stiles definitely doesn’t know he came from, and then Dansome will be all shiny and on-high and everything, and Stiles will still be scrubbing floors, still in the gutter, looking up at the stars.

At least he’s got stars to look at.

One star, in particular. It isn’t even the second from the right - but it’ll live on in the part of him that’s sixteen, that will always be sixteen, and in love with a man who never even told him his name.

 

* * *

 


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

Lord Deaton’s kind of a freak, as far as most of the kingdom is concerned, because he’s sort of obsessed with animals. Sort of _very_ obsessed with animals. But he’s a nice guy, and he keeps pretty much every animal in the city healthy, happy and sane. And he doesn’t favor aristocrats just because they’re aristocrats; even a horse from the royal stables will have to wait for its flea treatment if a peasant-girl shows up with an injured budgie whose wing needs sewing. To Lord Deaton, all animals are equal. That makes him sort of cool. Very cool, even. There’s an old fairytale Stiles’s dad used to read to him, way back, about a Doctor Dolittle - Stiles sometimes wonders whether it was written about one of Lord Deaton’s ancestors.

Like Lady Allison, Lord Deaton actually treats Stiles like he has a brain. He works as Deaton’s clinic assistant, because apparently he has ‘the touch’, whatever that means, and Deaton seems to think that the only three people other than himself that have ‘the touch’ in the entirety of the city are Scott, Allison and Stiles himself. Having ‘the touch’ is very important, because it gives them the ability to ‘tame even a wolf’ - again, Stiles has no idea what Deaton means by that, but whatever.

The only problem, according to Deaton, is that a) Scott’s an idiot and would be perfectly useless as an assistant, and b) Allison is unavailable because she’s a lady of a high house. So, even though Deaton could use three assistants, Stiles is the only one that remains to help him out. And that, too, only within the hours prescribed by the Whittemores. Which sucks.

Deaton pays a lot, though. More than Stiles feels entirely comfortable with, sometimes, but Deaton just snorts and waves it off.

“You’re not a cinder-boy,” he says, whenever Stiles does his ritualistic Foot-Scuffing of Humility. “You’re an assistant. Get that into your thick head. And into your salary package. Jesus.”

“But - ”

“Now, where’s that pair o’ pliers? I need to get that glass out of Blackie’s leg. And bring the anesthetic, would you? The one with the curare, not the opium.”

And that’s that, basically. It’s not like Stiles can give the money back, especially not when he needs it so much, when every bag of coins handed to him is one less day of indentured slavery to the Whittemores. One less day of avoiding Jackson like he has the plague.

Today, Deaton’s off doing herb-shopping at the apothecary’s. He never sends anyone else to buy things for him, like most lords do; he’s picky in the extreme, because, he says, the wrong herb can kill an innocent animal.

Damn. He _is_ Doctor Dolittle.

Anyway. Stiles is at the clinic, putting Ruffy back in his cage with a bandaged paw and a stitched-up tail, when the door opens behind him.

“Hey,” he says, settling Ruffy in his pile of shredded rags. “Just a sec. Doc’s not in, so - ”

“Stiles.”

Stiles whips around, hand on his heart. “Shit! You! How did you even - _why_ are you even - do you have a sick pet, or something? A rabbit you couldn’t bring yourself to roast, while you were living rough in the forest, or wherever it is that you’re living rough?”

“You work here.”

It’s Der - Dansome. It’s Dansome, for Pete’s sake. How’d he even find this place? “Uh, yeah. I - well, depending on the time - ”

“In how many households do you work?”

“A lot? Lifelong debts tend to do that to a person. Or a machine. Because I’m really more of a machine than a person, with all the work I do. Er, are you... okay? You look a little peaky. Like, walking-dead peaky.”

“I need help.”

“A dove or a bumble-bee to carry another message of yours? That’s cool. I can double as a dove and as a bumble-bee, because I - ohmygod, what is that?” Dansome’s sleeve is torn. His sleeve is torn, and also apparently blood-soaked, and the only reason Stiles hadn’t realized it immediately is because Dansome’s tunic is blood-red. Which is the worst fashion statement _ever_ for someone in the process of bleeding out.

“An arrow,” says Dansome, and closes the door behind him. “I need you to stitch the wound for me.”

“A-an arrow? Oh, Christ. You - you got shot? B-b-by whom?”

“Stiles.”

Stiles swallows. “Shouldn’t - shouldn’t you be going to a court physician? Because of who you... what you are?” He trails off, noticing Dansome’s narrowed eyes. “The special snowflake that you are. The very, very special snowflake that you are, the downright delicate snowflake that you - argh,” Stiles ends up saying, because suddenly, Dansome’s got him by the shirt.

“You know,” Dansome growls.

“Eep,” squeaks Stiles. “I mean, yeah? I mean, of course I don’t know, I don’t know anything, you were never even here. Now, leggo of me so I can stitch you up the way I just stitched up a _dog_ , damn, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Dansome just glares at him.

“Dude,” says Stiles, starting to feel distinctly light-headed and also clammy, even though he isn’t the one with a two-inch perforation in his body. “I know. I _know_ , okay? But I don’t, because you haven’t told me anything, and even though I have a mind that can actually, like, think, I also have a lifetime’s worth of pretending I _don’t_ have a mind that can think. I’m practically going undercover in my own life. Relax, all right? Your secret’s safe with me. Not that there is a secret. To be safe. With. Uh. Yeah.”

Dansome keeps glaring.

“You know me, right? C’mon, you know me. You - ” Stiles isn’t going to be crushed and heartbroken if Dansome says otherwise. He isn’t. “You know me, you do. I’ve carried so many letters for you without ever opening a single one, and it wasn’t because I’m any less curious than an alley cat. It’s because I - because I wanted you to trust me, because I - ” shut up, shut _up_ “ - needed you to. Trust me.” He pauses, breathing hard, unendingly glad that he hasn’t, like, professed his undying love. Stress tends to make him a motor-mouth. “Do you? Trust me?”

Dansome releases his grip. His eyes go from sharp-enough-to-eviscerate-people to merely-sharp-enough-to-stab-people. “Yes,” he says, eventually. He looks almost mortified, like the whole random menacing act was more instinct than something he’d actually meant, and he expects better behavior from his id. “I trust you. You are one who defends the honor of a man who is not even present.”

“I’m sure I’d be flattered, if I knew what you were talking about, but I don’t, because you weren’t even there that day I was defending the honor of someone that wasn’t even you. See? I’m great at this.”

Dansome grunts.

“Now, get up on the pretty slab, Dansome, and we’ll have a look at you.”

The guy freezes. “Who is Dansome?”

Whoops. “Uh. You?”

“Me.”

“Y’know. Dark and Handsome. Dansome. That’s what I call you, since I don’t have your permission to call your real name, and - Dansome is your real name. I mean, of course you don’t have another name, let alone a top-secret name, how silly of me, ha ha - ”

Dansome stares at him.

“Can we get past my deep and intense embarrassment as well as my obviously unrequited attraction, and, like, get to the life-saving? Because I’m almost sure you’ll die if you keep bleeding out of that wound.”

Dansome... stares some more. And then tears off his tunic. Like, literally _tears_ it off, and -

“Holy - couldn’t you just take it off? Like a normal person? Which you are, you’re totally normal, nothing remotely aristocratic about you, at all - ”

“Taking it off would’ve jostled my arm.”

“And tearing it off _didn’t_? What - ”

“Derek,” he says, and Stiles jumps.

“What?” Stiles reaches for the medicine box, by instinct. His brain’s sort of shutting down, so it isn’t a conscious action. “Who’s that?”

“Derek,” says Shirtless Because I Ripped My Shirt Off. Not that Stiles is noticing the shirtlessness. “My name. You can call it.”

Stiles can - Stiles can _call_ it. “In what context, exactly?” he blurts, before realizing what he’s just said and flushing to the tips of his ears. “Uh. Ignore that. Sir. Person. Personage of high rank. Mysterious personage of high rank, whose name I absolutely must not know - ”

“But you do,” says... Derek, oh, god, it’s Derek, it’s _Prince Derek_ , it’s - “You do know. My name.”

Stiles... Stiles isn’t breathing. His lungs aren’t even in the country. “Okay,” he rasps, finally. “Okay. That’s - okay. Okay.”

Dans - Derek raises an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Stiles repeats, mindlessly, and somehow, his hand manages to go through the motions of taking out the pre-boiled, pre-sanitized cloth and soaking it in the anesthetic. “Okay.”

Derek’s starting to look amused.

“You have a _hole in your arm_ , possibly you could stop smiling? It’s freaking me out.”

“You can talk again.”

“Yes, I can talk again.”

“Good.”

“You - most people want me to shut up, you know.”

“I am not one of them.”

“I can tell.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Stiles.”

Stiles’s heart is beating at about a mile a minute. His fingers are, in fact, steady as they work the thread into the needle and the needle into Derek’s skin - the _prince’s_ skin - and he isn’t sure what god to attribute that minor miracle to. Maybe Doctor Dolittle. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Stiles huffs. “You thank me all the time. For every little thing. Just - hold still, got it?”

Derek holds still. And watches him.

Stiles... isn’t blushing as hotly as a tomato, exactly, but maybe more like... something else that blushes? A peach. That’s right. A sun-warmed peach, because peaches blush _warmly_ , not hotly -

“Stiles.”

“Mm.”

“The stitches are done.”

Stiles looks at his fingers. They are, indeed, resting pointlessly on Derek’s shoulder. Several inches above the wound. That he has just successfully closed. “Oh,” he says, and takes back his fingers. He’s feeling a little dizzy. And now? He definitely _is_ as red as a tomato. “Sorry.”

“Never apologize to me.”

“Nev - that makes it sound like we’ll actually know each other for an appreciable period of time. Like, heh, forever. Or something equally ridiculous.”

“We will always know each other.”

“No, we won’t. I mean, we won’t even meet each other. Once you’ve stopped shish-kebabing yourself with arrows or whatever you’re doing that involves writing secret letters to people, you’re going back to the castle and forgetting about me. Right?”

“Wrong.” Derek’s voice is low. Very, very low.

Stiles gulps. “Oh,” he says, again, because. _Oh_. “Does your wound hurt?”

“It is anesthetized.”

“Right. I anesthetized it. Well done, me. I’m just going to... put this kit away, and then you can - ”

Derek kisses him.

Derek - Derek just -

He just pulls Stiles in, with a hand on his wrist, and Stiles isn’t even sure how or when his hand got there, but it’s just - it’s just -

It’s just that there’s a giant albatross soaring in Stiles’s chest, which is the most ludicrous metaphor ever, but that’s what it feels like, because every hope he’d had, every glance he’d thought had lingered too long, every touch he’d let linger too long -

It’s here, Derek’s here, and his mouth is so _warm_ -

And also stubbled, Jesus, his face is _really_ stubbled -

Another few minutes of this and he’ll end up with stubble-burn -

God, he hopes so -

“Stiles,” says Derek, rough and somehow implacably gentle, their mouths parting with the softest, sweetest cling.

Stiles’s heart shivers. “Yeah?”

“Call it.”

“In this context?”

Derek’s eyes heat. “In every context.”

Wow. Okay. Wow. “Like, even in front of other people? I mean, not that we’d - I mean, even if we were just - taking a walk, or. Or a stroll. On a public street? I could - ”

“Stiles,” says Derek, and his brows lower. “Call it.”

“Calling it! I’m totally - I’m totally calling it, I... I can do that, I can absolutely... D. D-de. De-Der - ”

Derek looks at him.

“D-de-der. Ek. See? I said it.”

“You butchered it.”

“Hey! I got every syllable! Every consonant, even - ”

“ _Say it_.”

“De-Derek,” says Stiles, fairly sure his brain’s evaporated and his skull is basically just the bottom half of a broken hourglass filled with sand. Dry sand. Of humiliation. Seriously, is he a twelve-year-old girl? Why can’t he just - _say_ it - “Derek,” he manages, finally, although it’s a little shaky. “I - ”

Derek kisses him. Again. This is the best theme ever.

When they part, however many ages later (Stiles has read some scrolls in Allison’s library about the nature of time, but none of those venerated scholars apparently knew or cared to write about the relativity of time and its potentially telescopic properties whilst under the influence of a fabulous kiss), it turns out they aren’t the only people in the room.

Lord Deaton’s standing there. Looking at them. With an apothecary’s bag in his hand.

“Oh, shit,” mumbles Stiles, and pulls away.

Or tries to pull away - Derek’s still holding onto his shirt - so all Stiles ends up doing is bouncing uselessly off of Derek’s chest. Which probably makes him look like one of Ruffy’s chew-toys. Derek’s chest is _massive_. “Stay.”

“I - there’s someone there! Right there, even! Gawking at us!”

“He knows.”

“That you’re socially incapable? Good to know.”

“That I am the prince,” says Derek, at the same time that Lord Deaton decides to kneel. To _kneel_ , and -

Stiles hasn’t seen Deaton do that for anyone. Not even Duke Martin, whose prize marmoset Deaton hadn’t even bothered to glance at because he was busy saving a goatherd’s dying goat.

“Your highness,” says Deaton, and he sounds so glad. “You have returned.” He twitches a smile. “As have your grievous injuries.”

Derek harrumphs. “It’s barely a scratch.”

“Anything that brings you to my clinic? Is hardly a scratch. Prince Derek.”

“Your assistant healed it just fine.”

“Oi,” says Stiles, feeling a certain indignation bubble up under his embarrassment. “Are you putting down my skills? Just ’cause I could heal it, doesn’t mean it was a scratch. It wasn’t a scratch,” he clarifies, to Lord Deaton, just in case the man’s wondering. “It was a great big arrow-hole. That Mister Kamikaze Prince over here thought was a good idea to acquire as a hobby or something, maybe it’s what princes _do_ instead of collecting postage stamps - ”

“Stiles,” says Derek, in that tone, and, _oh_. It means Derek wants to kiss him.

Derek has already demonstrated that on him. Twice. In fact, Derek’s been using that tone plenty of times, for weeks, and Stiles didn’t even - how unfair is it that Stiles didn’t even know?

Derek wants to kiss him. But Lord Deaton is here.

Lord Deaton is _here_ , damn him, and Lord Deaton is -

\- laughing.

“Hah,” says Deaton, which is honestly the first sound of its kind that Stiles has ever heard from the man, so he sort of gapes. “It seems he has healed you, my prince. In all sorts of ways.”

Is - is Deaton implying sexual healing? Because that would be wrong. Just plain wrong. One’s employers do not imply such things. It’s - it’s -

“He has healed your heart.”

Oh, that’s okay, then.

Wait a second -

That’s much _worse_. It’s, like, a 9.9 on the Richter Scale. Of Wizard Richter’s Scale of Sorcerous Earthquake Prediction. This is a veritable earthquake of revelation. Stiles has healed Derek’s _heart_? What?

“Deaton,” warns Derek, and Deaton grins.

“Your highness,” he says, “I do beg your pardon. As you are being sufficiently tended, shall I leave you to your tending? I have herbs to deposit in my store-house.” Deaton shakes his little bag of supplies, looking exactly like a kid with a new bag of toys, and then just... leaves the room. Without even waiting for permission.

Well, he _is_ Deaton.

“It is good to see him,” says Derek, a faint note of nostalgia entering his voice. “He was always one of the few people in court that I could trust to see me as I was.”

“A hottie with a six-pack? Uh. Never mind - ”

“A man with a conscience.”

“Right,” says Stiles, nodding. “Of course. That. Right.”

“You don’t believe in the rumors.”

“What, that you’re _not_ a hottie with a six-pack? No, I most certainly don’t.”

Derek - wheezes. And lets his head fall onto Stiles’s shoulder.

It takes Stiles a couple moments to process that wheezing as laughter. Or maybe the arrow also punctured a lung. Somehow. The thought makes him run a maintenance-hand down Derek’s torso. Which turns out to be flawless. And muscular. Stiles’s maintenance-hand... sort of forgets that it’s a maintenance-hand, and stays. Maybe strokes, a little. Pets. Finesses.

“I meant,” continues Derek, some time later, sounding drowsier and a lot more relaxed, “that you don’t believe I’m evil.”

“Um, given the fact that I’m the one with lascivious thoughts, here? I don’t think you’re evil.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“Huh?”

“With... thoughts,” Derek says, and Stiles barely has the time to gasp before Derek’s kissing him. Again.

Best. Theme. Ever.

“Okay,” says Stiles, swollen-lipped and woozy, and possibly leaning a little more into Derek than he really should be leaning into someone who recently had minor surgery performed on them. By Stiles. “Okay, I... definitely buy the evil angle, now. There’s definitely some evil going on, here. Possibly also elsewhere? With a bed? And no veterinarians?”

Derek makes this sound - like a purr-growl, or a - a _wild_ sound, anyway, an animal sound, that makes Stiles thrill all the way to his toes.

“J-Jesus. I - ”

“Yes,” says Derek, and his expression is almost pained. “Yes, but - ”

“Your arm. Of course, I’m sorry - ”

“No,” Derek says, and almost _yanks_ Stiles closer. “That’s not - I can’t. Not yet. There are... things I have to do, and I can’t be seen - ”

“ - frolicking in the fields? I get it.”

Derek’s face thunderclouds. Like, literally, it turns the noun into a verb. “I - ”

“It’s fine. I get it. I do, all right?” Stiles softens his words, so that Derek doesn’t misunderstand. So that he doesn’t think _Stiles_ misunderstands. “I - I’ve been delivering messages, remember? I know something big is afoot. I’m not some needy princess that needs flowers delivered to her door every day at exactly two hours past sunrise, after a night of vigorous love-making. Although I’m not opposed to vigorous love-making, let me just make that clear.”

The thunderclouds start to dissipate.

“Uh. But I - I should warn you - to watch your step. Even more than you _have_ been watching your step. You might have... more than your expected share of stalkers.”

And the clouds are back. Wow, it’s like watching weather patterns move across a continent. A very rugged, very handsome continent. “What do you mean?”

“Er. I. My master?”

“Your _what_?”

Stiles has never heard _that_ growl before. “My... creditor, I should say. The guy whose family my dad and I owe money to. That’s - kind of why I work in all these places. To pay it back even faster. They let me. _He_ lets me. Why, I don’t know, since he’s usually an asshat about everything, but - ”

“Who is he.”

“Jackson Whittemore. Whittemore, you know? Like the Whittemores.” Well, if that isn’t the dumbest introduction Stiles has ever made, and that’s counting the time he introduced Scott to Lady Allison as ‘my codependent but entirely heterosexual best friend, with whom I have no carnal relations whatsoever, despite all appearances to the contrary’. “Anyway, he thinks you’re some sort of baddie trying to take advantage of me - half of which delusion has, happily, come true - and he’s determined to find out your real identity. So that he can blackmail you. And force you to stop.”

“Why is he so protective of you.”

“Protective? I wouldn’t call him - trust me, he’s - ” probably not a good idea to mention the history of near-sexual assault “ - not protective.”

“Then what is he.”

“Whoa, what happened to your question-marks? They go extinct, or something? Like dragons? Minotaurs? Little green men?”

“What. _Is he_.”

“My master. So long as I... don’t pay off my debt, I guess? Which I will do on my own, so don’t go trying to pull some sort of philanthropic prince routine - ”

“He’s having me followed.”

“Yeah. Which, you know, is another point in favor of not blatantly frolicking until whatever you’re doing is done. And you don’t have to tell me - it’s better if you _don’t_ tell me - until it’s done.” Stiles reaches up a hand and brushes the side of Derek’s face. The scarred side. The side that was, most likely, scarred in the horrible fire that had killed most of the royal family... “Just. Take care, okay?”

But Derek’s gone quiet. He looks calmer, but also far away, like a man thinking about solving a problem that doesn’t yet exist. “I will.”

“Derek,” says Stiles, and takes Derek’s face in both of his hands. “Promise.”

And just like that, Derek’s back with him. He looks human again, as opposed to someone’s worst, sharp-eyed nightmare. “I promise.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

“Yep. By the way, who shot you?”

Derek’s eyebrows do a twitchy thing. “I thought we agreed that it’s better if you not know.”

“Not about this! This has already happened! I’ve already seen it! Just - ”

“No.”

“What, do you think I’ll poison their well? Not that the thought hasn’t occurred to me, not gonna lie, but - ”

“Stiles. It isn’t safe.”

“For me to know who your enemies are? Who _my_ enemies are?”

Derek catches his breath. And kisses Stiles. Again.

“All right,” says Stiles, fully determined to compose theme music for this most marvelous theme. He’ll have to borrow the lute Scott uses to tunelessly serenade Allison. God alone knows why she tolerates it; Scott’s singing sounds like the mangiest, most pathetic wolf’s howl. “Okay. You’re a great kisser, therefore you are always right. That is the point you wanted to make, isn’t it?”

“No, but it’s close enough.”

“You’re evil, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Heh.” Stiles can’t help it; this time, _he_ leans in to kiss Derek, instead.

 

* * *

**fin.**


End file.
